The conversations about the Kardashians have recently shifted from “what are they famous for?” to “how are they so rich?” (like, REALLY). This, although not much more of a compliment either, at least reflects the different media avenues that are now putting them in the limelight.
Publications such as Forbes and the Entrepreneur, which are regarded highly in the business world, have featured exclusive segments to highlight the different income channels that the Kardashians have created for themselves in a seemingly effortless manner.
Curious to find out how they created an empire that impressed Forbes and the Entrepreneur? Continue reading this article to understand how they leveraged the internet, and the tools of digital marketing, for their continued and growing success.
1. Diversify your offerings
It is undeniable that none of the Kardashians began their career as experts or qualified professionals in any of the fields they are currently involved with. They did achieve their initial fame and status due to their circle of famous friends and a reality show. However, they leveraged the viewership garnered from this show to promote their then-clothing store, Dash. They used to discuss how the Dash’s day-to-day business was and often shot scenes for the show in the store itself, incentivizing audiences to visit the store in the hopes of catching them there.
Over time, as the sales began to decline, they dabbled with launching their perfume lines, clothing lines and made appearances for events as MCs. Kim herself was also a stylist for a while, giving her an insight into the brands and styles that particular demographics prefer to wear. They also discovered how social media put them in direct contact with their fans, whom they were able to interact with and eventually turn into their customers by understanding the kind of products they were interested in.
After much trial-and-error with different types of products, the Kardashians now each have a primary product that they are the face of. While Kim is the face of KKW Beauty (make-up), Khloe owns Good American (clothing line), and Kourtney markets different types of health & wellness items. They understood which one of them could market a certain product to the target audience due to their years of dabbling with different products and through different media.
Tip: Having more options will give your brand greater visibility across different demographics and allow you to understand consumer behavior in a much more meaningful way than a single product would.
2. Engage on Social Media
In a digital world, no business can maximize its visibility for consumers without the help of social media. While most businesses are now learning this lesson to get up-to-speed with others, the Kardashians were perhaps the original goldmine of followers that created this trend.
Each one of the Kardashians has over 100 million followers on Instagram, with additional millions on Twitter. Their show gave them a surge of followers on these social media platforms, while most of us were still trying to understand how they worked.
Instead of letting their followers consume meaningless content from them, they turned this viewership into a lucrative business opportunity by starting to promote different products on their social media pages. It is estimated that Kim gets paid over $200,000 per Instagram post she makes for any product that she is endorsing in that post. Another way to think of this is that the brand is paying her to advertise their product to over 100 million potential consumers.
Tip: Social media is your chance to give the audience an insider look into your brand, the purpose behind it, and the production process that is involved to make them feel like a part of it and gain their loyalty.
3. Know your audience
This will automatically happen for businesses who have taken the steps to do the above two points thoroughly. If you diversify your offerings and engage regularly on social media, you are certain to know certain trends about your audience’s spending habits and product preferences.
What the Kardashians have done with this information is to create a consumer-driven marketing strategy. It has been made even easier by a large social media presence, whereby it is easy to observe the response to a particular product by the number of likes and types of comments under a post. Accordingly, they capitalize on the more popular products than the rest.
One thing to note about this, however, is that leveraging on social media to understand your audience only works if your social media engagement is organic. These days, numerous brands are “buying” their followers and likes to seem more popular and credible among their competitors. However, in the long run, it can definitely backfire by making them out of touch with their actual target audience.
Tip: Any kind of organic engagement with your target audience is worth a lot more than superficial engagement with a larger audience.
4. Push the Content across Platforms
We may have all felt at some point or another that the Kardashians are everywhere. Whether you log into Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and now even news publications, it is nearly impossible to escape some flowery-but-meaningless article about them.
You may be surprised to learn that this, too, is a rather clever marketing strategy that they have learned.
Typically, whenever one of them makes a social media post promoting a product – let’s say a lipstick – the next day, they will share the same photo either on Snapchat or Daily Mail (if not both). What this re-publishing of the same content does is post that advertisement across all different platforms. So, whether or not you follow them consciously, you will be exposed to this lipstick advertisement that you didn’t even know you were being marketed. It is impressive if you think about it!
Tip: Make your content work harder and ensure that any content created for your business is shared across different platforms, hyperlinked to your original landing page, to increase its viewership as much as possible.
Finding yourself intrigued by the clever workings of the digital marketing realm? Check out Digital Marketing courses to get your own digital marketing career started. Who knows, you could assist the next Kardashian family on the come-up of their multi-million-dollar empire!
